Imagining (in)security: NATO's collective self-defence and post-9/11 military policing in the mediterranean sea

Counterterrorism; Critical security studies; Imagination; NATO; Pre-emption; Transnational fields; Sociology and Political Science; Political Science and International Relations

Abstract :

[en] How do scenarios of dangerous futures imagined in the framework of the post-9/11 counterterrorism shape security institutions? Critical Security Studies (CSS)'s dominant answer is that state apparatus are significantly transformed by the use of new technologies of prediction that are very prolific in imagining potential risks. The present article questions this technologically determinist thesis. Introducing the notion of weak field in the study of pre-emption, it argues that the political sociology of transnational fields of power can help us in historicise and assess more precisely the impact of imagination over power and control in the pre-emptive era. The article analyses NATO's reaction to 9/11 as a case study. It shows how the fabrication of potential terrorist threats by NATO's practitioners, that served to justify the pre-emptive use of the collective self-defence clause of the Washington Treaty (Article 5), evolved into an ambiguous support for NATO's military policing of the Mediterranean basin and into its involvement in migration control.

Disciplines :

Political science, public administration & international relations

Author, co-author :

Pomarède, Julien ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de science politique > Politique internationale : International Politics In a Comparative Perspective ; Recherche et Etudes en Politique Internationale (REPI), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

Language :

English

Title :

Imagining (in)security: NATO's collective self-defence and post-9/11 military policing in the mediterranean sea

Publication date :

April 2021

Journal title :

Review of International Studies

ISSN :

0260-2105

eISSN :

1469-9044

Publisher :

Cambridge University Press

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

192 - 210

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0260210521000024

Funding text :

A previous version of this article was presented at the 2019 ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, in the WS 27, 'The Politics of Security Knowledge Negotiation' (Mons). I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the RIS editorial team for their rich and inspiring comments, as well as Didier Bigo, Alexandra Gheciu, Julien Jeandesboz, Elisa Lopez Lucia, Maria Martin de Almagro, Christian Olsson, and Hanna Rodehau-Noack.

Available on ORBi :

since 24 October 2023

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